They were for a service that it ran jointly with HAPAG between Copenhagen, Hamburg and the Caribbean, and they were named after the three main islands of the Danish West Indies.

[7] St. Thomas, St. Jan and St. Croix were found to be too big for their intended use, and in 1907 ØK withdrew from the joint service.

By late January 1915 she had been joined by another HAPAG ship, Präsident,[10] and the British collier Farn, which the cruiser SMS Karlsruhe had captured as a prize and renamed KD-III.

[15] Earlier in the war the US had proclaimed its neutrality, stating "The President is authorized and empowered to direct the Collectors of Customs under the jurisdiction of the United States to withhold clearance from any vessel, American or foreign, which he has reasonable cause to believe to be about to carry arms, ammunition, men, or supplies to any warship or tender or supply ship of a belligerent nation in violation of the obligations of the United States as a neutral nation..."[16] On 19 March the commandant of the US Army garrison in San Juan, Lieutenant-Colonel Burnham, in the Collector's presence, warned the German Consul and Odenwald's Master that he would use force if necessary to prevent the ship leaving port without permission.

Odenwald had deployed Germans in fishing boats, pretending to be night-fishing, to mark the channel out of the harbour to enable the ship to leave port without a pilot.

The Collector summoned support from garrison, which sent an infantry unit with fixed bayonets, and a platoon of mountain artillery with six machine guns, with orders to open fire on the ship if she tried to leave port.

The Boletín mercantil de Puerto Rico reported that six guns of the Morro fired warning salvoes: two across Odenwald's bow, and one across her stern.

[17] On 30 March The New York Times reported that one seven-inch gun fired one shell across Odenwald's bow.

[12] International rules, as set forth by the US Naval War College, required that "the vessel is brought to by firing a gun with a blank charge.

If this is not sufficient to cause her to lie to a shot is fired across the bows, and in case of flight or resistance force can be used to compel the vessel to surrender."

Two customs officers were put aboard Odenwald, and a picket of soldiers was embarked on the buoy tender Ivy, which was deployed as a guard ship to watch over her.

[14] On 23 March the United States Department of the Navy sent two destroyers to San Juan to deter Odenwald from trying to leave again.

On 3 February Josephus Daniels, United States Secretary of the Navy, ordered the internment of all German and Austro-Hungarian ships in US-controlled ports, including Odenwald in San Juan.

[22] On 6 April 1917 the US declared war on Germany, and at the same time seized 91 German ships in its ports,[23] including KD-III, Odenwald, and Präsident in San Juan.

She was defensively armed with four 3-inch/23-caliber guns,[6] and on 14 July she was commissioned into the Navy as USS Newport News, with the hull classification symbol AK-3.

She then took coal to Boston, and on 24 March left New York carrying military supplies to the United Kingdom.

It took her to Gibraltar, where after discharging her cargo she loaded food, clothing and other supplies that she took to Constantinople (now Istanbul) to relieve famine in the Near East.

[25] She left Hampton Roads on 27 July 1919, passed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific, and reached Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California on 5 August.

On 1 August 1924 she was decommissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington, and struck from the Naval Vessel Register.